Tooting my own horn here! My new novel, ‘L.A. Ladies‘ is now ready for pre-ordering on Kindle. You can find it here and read more about Robin, a ghost-blogger who is re-starting her life after the death of her husband. (And–Yes!–a collie is a character in the novel.)

The paperback edition will published on February 18th, too.

This romance-mystery is available for pre-order at other online bookstores, including Nook and Kobo. Coming soon on iTunes and Scribd.

The ebook cover of ‘L.A. Ladies’. It is now available for pre-order of Kindle

New Vampire in Town, a novel of contemporary vampires. Sometimes funny!

I don’t check the listings of my books on Barnes and Noble’s Nook very often. Most of my sales are on Kindle. A week ago, however, I checked B&N and found the first review there for my vampire novella, New Vampire in Town. It had 3 stars.

Oh no, I thought, she must have hated it. Do I want to look at what she said? Not sure. Be brave, I said to myself. Read it. So I did and I could hug whoever wrote the review. She gave it three stars because it was short. (The writer in me says–it’s a novella. Novellas are short.) And then the reviewer wrote : “I’d like to read more by this author” Nicer words this author has never read! So “Thank you” to whoever wrote the review. And hang in there. I am about half way through a full length novel based on the vampires, Cate and Conrad, and their efforts to live normal lives in this world. Cate gets into a web enterprise and, of course, that gorgeous vampire Jack the Surfer is still around causing problems in the new book.

Funny follow-up. I checked B&N to get the link, below, and discovered that Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot is listed right beside New Vampire in Town. I love it!

I went to the new Nook Press site and tried to get more details, but it wasn’t easy. In one of the writers’ groups, however, I read that the fine print for Nook Press states that they can change a cover or even change the copy for any ebook published using their new service. That makes me uneasy–to say the least.

I really like some of the other features: uploading a manuscript once, then editing it on their site; being able to have others, for example, beta readers or editors, read the manuscript on their site, and not having to struggle with formatting before uploading.

My PubIt account is currently inactive. I took down my novel, San Francisco Summer ’69, which had been available for Nook Readers so I could put it onto Kindle Select. I’m concerned that if I reactivate the PubIt account that they will publish the novel again and that would cook my goose for Kindle Select. I guess I will just wait for now.

Otis Chandler, CEO of Goodreads reveals where readers really get their books!

Otis Chandler, CEO of Goodreads and descendant of the founder of the L.A. Times, gave a presentation at the big Tools of Change (TOC) conference in NY. I wish I had been there, but wasn’t. I hadn’t even heard of it until the TOC was underway–that’s one more example of my doing everything backwards.

Anyway, I clicked through an online version of Chandler’s Power Point presentation of research about book readers in the digital age. That’s interesting. That’s interesting. Whoa–what’s this? There it was: one slide that turned a lot of what is being touted about reading books upside down. According to the research the Number One place readers get the books they read: their local Library!! Not online. Not from Amazon or Nook or Kobo. Their local Library. Fascinating what number reveal.

Goodreads, if you are not familiar with it, is an online bookstore/social community. You can find it here: http://goodreads.com